In today's society, people are becoming more and more reliant on devices and equipment that require battery power for longer and continuous operation. For example, portable electronic devices such as smartphones, notebook computers, tablets, e-readers, smart watches and Internet of Things (IoT) are pervasive and users increasingly rely on such devices to stay constantly connected both professionally and casually for a wide variety of applications and computing purposes. In addition to portable electronic devices, the introduction and manufacture of battery operated (partially or fully) automobiles is further increasing the demands on and challenges to battery technology. Of course, critical to the operation of such electronic devices or automobiles is the delivery of power from the resident battery. As such, the electronic, automobile and battery industries have been under increased pressure to improve overall battery delivery and management technology to match the increasing needs of consumers for more continuous power levels and/or longer battery life.
For example, most currently available smartphones are designed to operate continuously for approximately 8-10 hours/day on a fully charged battery with their resident batteries (e.g., lithium-ion, nickel-metal hydride or nickel-cadmium batteries) having approximately 500 charging cycles (i.e., battery lifespan). However, in practical terms, users find that most electronic devices cannot operate over an entire day of operation on the capacity of a single battery charge and are more frequently charging such devices throughout their day.
However, incremental charging or frequent longer term charging applied to a battery will typically have a deleterious impact on the battery's lifespan and significantly diminish their operating life due to the limited (i.e., fixed) number of available battery charging cycles for the battery. Further, as a battery ages and approaches its charging cycle limit, the battery's capacity to hold energy is significantly diminished per charging cycle. For example, it is not uncommon for batteries to retain only 80% of their original charge capacity after several hundred charging cycles. The challenges to improve the delivery of available battery power and increase battery lifespan include battery size constraints, weight constraints and battery material limitations, to name just a few of the major challenges.